


In the Woods Somewhere

by TrippinOverMyFandoms



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Death, Hozier, I should be sleeping, M/M, Song fic, past my bedtime fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21915244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrippinOverMyFandoms/pseuds/TrippinOverMyFandoms
Summary: Oliver is gravely wounded. In the moments between his life and death he clings. Slade is in denial, he'll do anything to save the man he's fallen in love with. Shado is not optimistic of his survival, but she'll make sure Oliver goes peacefully in spite of the horrors of Lian Yu, Oliver's purgatory.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Slade Wilson, Thea Queen & Slade Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	In the Woods Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, again, for the character death. I don't know why but this is the second time I've killed Oliver. I'm really sorry for this.

** In the woods somewhere **

_**"My head was warm. My skin was soaked. I called your name, 'til the fever broke."** _

"Slade," Oliver called, panicked as he woke, thrashing against the heavy blankets that held him down. Slade was there before Oliver had finished the first syllable, quick to hold the kid down so he didn't do more damage to himself. He had a chance if he would just stay still.

Oliver was never good at staying still.

"It's okay, calm down, I'm here," he says, in a calming voice that doesn't sound like his own but it seems to do the trick. Oliver stills has he clutches his hand, tight, too tight. It's like Slade is the only thing keeping him on the earth. Maybe it was. 

Shado is there soon after, a cloth with cool water to wipe away the dirt and sweat mixture on Oliver's brow. "His fevers broken. His breath is still too labored, though. All I can do is ensure he doesn't suffer." 

Her words fell flat on Slade's ears. Shado was a lawyer, or training to be, what did she know about medical situations? Oliver could still have a chance. 

He's angered when he sees the look on Oliver's face, he seems to have understood the implication, that he most likely wouldn't survive. Slade lets out something like a mix between a huff and a growl as he gently nudges Oliver's head with his own. "You're going to be fine kid," he's not sure if he's telling Oliver that or himself, but he squeezes Oliver's hand and uses his other to stroke the side of Oliver's face, encouraging him back to sleep. He wasn't a doctor either but he knew sleep would help.

_**"When I awoke, the moon still hung. The night so black that the darkness hummed."** _

Oliver wakes suddenly yet slower than before. Less violent as he feels he isn't as in danger as he had been when the fever controlled his sense of what was real. He's alone, not even Slade is by his side like he remembered him being when he fell asleep. 

It was so dark in the fuselage. He could barely make out the other side of their camp. It was unnatural as they always had some sort of light. Even the moon seemed dimmed. Perhaps thick clouds covered it up. He didn't know. He was trapped in bed, unable to move even if he wanted to. 

The quiet fell weighed on him when he realized that he couldn't even hear Slade's or Shado's breathing. He was accustomed to hearing their individual breath patterns when the slept, usually when he woke like this, all alone in the darkness until he fell asleep. Where they even there? Had they left him? Had Fyers taken them? Was be left alone to die?

Had he died? 

**_"I raised myself. My legs were weak. I prayed my mind be good to me."_ **

It was unsettling. It wasn't natural. They wouldn't leave him. Not with how attentive Slade had been recently. 

Oliver decided he wasn't dead yet, that something was wrong, he had to investigate, even if his body protested when he sat up. The action alone winded him. When he caught his breath, he stood, crying out in agony as he did so. His hands flew to the wound on his side, pain becoming all he can feel and everything seeming suddenly obsolete. 

Voices say his name and hands usher him back down. They hadn't been gone perhaps. Where had they been then? He didn't know, all he knew was the pain.

_**"An awful noise filled the air. I heard a scream in the woods somewhere."** _

"Oliver should be back by now," Slade notes, glancing at the entrance to their hideout. He was beginning to think he shouldn't have let Oliver check the traps alone. 

"He's fine," Shado's voice is soft, reassuring, from behind him as she places a hand on his shoulder. She cared for Oliver almost as much as he did but Slade wondered if she had too much faith in him. She would argue Slade worried too much.

"He likes to take his time," she continues, "I'm sure he's just being-" her words are cut off by something they hear, loud and clear, off in the trees beyond the fuselage. 

A scream, Oliver's. 

It twists Slade's gut and drives him into action before he has time to think properly. It's awful, a bloody murder type that makes anyone's heart stop, and Slade swears his did. He charged out of their camp, no weapons and no armor, out into the open field and into the tree line. Another scream echoes through the woods, pointing him in the right direction. 

**_"I quickly ran, into the trees with empty hands."_ **

Slade realized his mistake when he saw the soldier standing over Oliver, bloody knife raised in preparation for a third attack. Slade suddenly wished he had thought to grab a gun. He had nothing but his hands. So his hands he used. 

He ran toward the man, barreled into him, and they went to the ground where they wrestled in the leaves. He had knocked the sword from his hands, he realized this quick. He was fortunate to have landed on top so he was able to lock the man down with his knees, punching him square in the face as he reached for the blade. 

As soon as his fingertips met the handle, blinded by rage, he drove the weapon into the man's chest, the crunch of his breast bone as it breached barely an afterthought as his soul focus was vanquishing the one who made his lover bleed. 

Right, Oliver. 

_**"A fox it was. He was afraid. I spoke no words, no sound he made."** _

Slade left his kill to find Oliver. He was on the ground, bloody and unmoving. He's by his side quick, adrenaline making his mind cloudy.

Oliver had two large wounds, no doubt caused by the blade. One deep between his ribs on the left side and another, shallower looking, right under his chest and above his stomach. The wounds on his face told of a fight before the deadly blows. Blood streamed down into his eyes from his hairline and his nose was undoubtedly broken. 

He barely looked to be breathing, yet he was alive, somehow. 

_**"His bone exposed. His hind was lame. I raised a stone to end his pain."** _

They buried him in the center of the field that lay before the fuselage when he passed. Slade built a tall pillar of stone, Shado didn't stop him. She knew that there was more between them than either let on. She understood he was grieving. 

Slade stacked rocks just half as tall as himself. He even carved Oliver's name into the biggest one that stood out. It wasn't perfect, Slade hated it. Oliver deserved so much better. He deserved to be buried with real soldiers, people who had fought for their survival, just like him. Stupid infections. He could have made it. He could have survived. 

Fyers would pay for this. Slade would make sure of it. He declared that to the small monument he made. "I keep my promises." He uttered with so much determination. 

Oliver didn't suffer, but Fyers would.

**_"What caused the wound? How large the teeth? I saw new eyes were watching me."_ **

It was like they knew he had died. Barely a day after the burial they had found them. Sending Yao Fei as a false hope before surrounding them in the fuselage. 

"Pity he wasn't strong enough," Fyers dares to say, casting a half hearted glance at the rock pillar. It made Slade's blood boil and he lunged for the man, blinded by a rage he hasn't felt since the day be found Oliver bleeding on the ground. 

Soldiers retaliate quicker than he's able and they knock him to the ground to protect their leader. Guns are pointed at him and he stares down their barrels just daring them to make a the move. 

It's Shado who saves him. Saying they would go with them quietly. 

_**"The creature lunged. I turned and ran. To save a life I didn't have."** _

The first opening he had he ran. Slade took off and when he heard the gunshot he let out the most pained shout he could manage. He wasn't hit, but if they thought he was he had a chance that they would think to leave him to die. It was the only way he could go back and kill Fyers. 

He ran to the fuselage, gathering up every weapon, every blade, every bullet he had. He gears up with everything at his disposal. This isn't just some routine mission he was going to half ass. 

This was war.

The bow and quiver that rested next to his cases of weapons hurt him. Like one of the arrows had penetrated his chest and sunk deep into his soul. It was a reminder of why he was going to do this.

Carefully, he picks them up and carries them outside, setting them down against the small monument. The dirt was still fresh and grass hadn't begun to grow yet. It was still too soon afterward.

In parting, he kisses the tips of his fingers before pressing his hand against Oliver's name where he had carved it. "This ones for you kid. I'll see you soon."

**_"Deer in the chase, there as I flew. Forgot all prayers of joining you."_ **

Slade had expected to die. He really did. When he departed the monument he expected to go out in a glorious blaze as he avenged Oliver. He got the glorious blaze part alright.

Ashes of the camp rained down in the aftermath of destruction. It was a last ditch effort to use Fyres' own weapon against him and a half thought out plan originally mumbled by Oliver. Slade hadn't expected it to work. But Slade also thought he would have been dead by now.

Shado finds him in the wreckage, hugging him tightly when she sees he's okay. He soon learns her father had been a casualty before he showed up to mess everything up. 

In the moment he decides that he must have survived for some sort of reason. It's unfair because Oliver should have lived. It didn't feel right that he died like that. It felt wrong. Oliver was supposed to be here. 

He's avenged him but it doesn't feel like enough. It doesn't put his soul to rest. It's not good enough.

_**"I clutched my life and wished it kept. My dearest love I'm not done yet."** _

He finds himself in Starling City five years later, on the doorstep of the Queen's. 

Slade had joked once about meeting Oliver's family, or what was left of it. After they had spent a night together in the same bed. That memory made this all wrong. He wanted to meet Oliver's mother. But not like this. He wanted him by his side. 

He's there, not as the Slade Wilson Oliver had known, but as Slade Wilson, a man looking to help benefit Moira Queen's campaign as mayor. He didn't have the heart to tell her of how her son had changed so much, how he got to see him grow and how he fell in love with the wreckless shithead, how her son's death was all his fault because he let him check traps alone. 

He sticks close by the family. He keeps an eye on Oliver's little sister Thea and the girl, Laurel, he had gone on about. He's glad he does, because he has this level of trust built up when Moira Queen is suddenly killed by her competitor. He's there for Thea and supports her emotionally as well as financially. 

It's then he realizes this is why he survived. To take care of those Oliver couldn't, those Oliver had loved. 

**_"How many years, I know I'll bear. I found something in the woods somewhere."_ **

He finds himself as mayor of the city a year or two down the road. That's his day job. By night he's Deathstroke, leader of a team Thea Queen had founded to put and end to those who terrorized the city. Slade couldn't talk her out of it so he was going to help her. He wasn't going to leave her to do it alone like he had her brother. He already failed one of them and he would die if it meant protecting Thea. 

It had been just the two of them in the beginning, but eventually others joined them. They had a group of fearless vigilantes protecting Starling City in the name of Oliver Queen.

Because Slade eventually told Thea of the brave man Oliver had become. When her crusade first began and he cursed his name for being a stupid kid, that she wasn't going to be like him. It was then that Slade had to tell her of how brave he had been. Unfortunately it didn't help and she wanted to be just as brave. Just as heroic, even more so. She wanted to survive. 

Damn these Queens.   
Damn him for going along with them. 

But Slade Wilson knew, he may have failed Oliver, and he carried that with him everyday, but he would die before anyone had the chance to hurt the team that girl had built. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I did the song justice. I really like it and it reminds me so much of Lian Yu (I'm definitely gonna make a music video) but I don't know-  
> Usually when I hear it it's more in Oliver's point of view- where as this kinda switches but remains in Slade's for most of it.  
> I may rewrite it with something just as edgy but no Oliver death. We'll see.
> 
> Also, Slade leading the team (or co leading in this case) is something that's been in my head since the bigger project Lay Me Down inspired (but no mirakuru in this and also that didn't get written at all so sorry for that tease) and was brought to life in this.  
> Also for clarification- the Slade & Thea tag is for the events in the latter bits because Slade is so protective of her. There's also no mirakuru so he's more in his right mind. I don't know it's almost three am and I'm already trying to think of a Christmas fic to make up for this sad piece of whatever.
> 
> Sorry, I love y'all and don't mean to hurt your feels, if it's any consolation it hurt me to write. It also didn't end how I wanted so there's that.


End file.
